•553 JAMAICA. 



for this reafon, at the very time, when it has been doing fuch eHential 

 fervice, by driving out fuch foul and corrupt humours, which, when 

 retained in the habit, produce fevers, and other dangerous maladies. 

 Nor are its good efFefts confined to the human race. It is the com- 

 mon praftice, on the plantations in Jamaica, to feed the working horfes 

 and mules in crop-time with chopped cane-tops, and the fliimmings of 

 the boillng-houfe liquorj which anfvver better than corn, in preferving 

 them plump, ftrong, and healthy. Hogs, poultry, and, in fliort, all 

 the animals belonging to a plantation, thrive on this juice. Even the 

 (lop-s in this iiland, although qualified by nature not only to relifh, 

 but to digefl:, putrid food, are not lefs fond of fugar. I have known 

 XI well-fed animal of this fpecies, who was commonly dieted from a 

 plentiful table, and never tafted carrion by way oi ion iouche withowl 

 •llifFering feverely for it ; on thefe occafions he ufed a quantity of what 

 is called here dog-grafs, fufficient either to make him difgorge, or 

 compofe, his llomach, probably, by the fixed air contained in that 

 plant ; at other times he would greedily devour the avogato pear, 

 clammy cherry, ripe plantains, yams, bananas, ^c. ; but, when in- 

 troduced to the boiling-houfe, he never failed to regale himfelf with- 

 out intermiffion ; and, from being in a ftate of miferable leannefs, was 

 fure to become plump, and full of life and agility. 



I have feen the good effefts of it on Negroes afflifted with the 

 yaws, even after the diforder (by catching colds after a mercurial 

 regimen) had fallen upon their joints ; it threw the venom out on 

 the fuiface in a plentiful eruption, and thus brought on a crifis, which 

 no other known remedy could have produced fo defircably. 



In worm diforders there is not a more powerful remedy than the 

 iuice of ripe canes, to expel thefe vermin [x]. The Negroe children 

 (as if prompted by inflinft) fuck them with the utmofl: avidity, and 

 are always relieved. When powders and other vermifuge medicines 

 are adminiftered, melafl'es or fyrup ufually forms a part of the com- 

 pofition, and perhaps contributes more than is generally imagined to 



[x] Doftor Grainger obferves, that fugar is commonly fuppofed to favour worms ; that, how- 

 ever, he knows this, from repeated experiment, to be a vulgar error. That perhaps no one thing 

 in the mcacria nicdica is more deadly to worms than cane-liquor, unlefs we except mufco'vado, mixed 

 U'ith an equul (juantity ot fweet oil, efpecially what is made by cxprellion from the cocoa nut. 



their 



